Nitin Gadkari: India to soon have integrated transport policy

Nitin Gadkari said that integrated transport will include construction of 50 economic corridors and upgrading of key feeder and inter-corridor routes to improve overall efficiency of freight movement.

New Delhi, March 15: Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday said the government is working to formulate an integrated, multi-modal logistics and transport policy to reduce logistics costs by nearly half, making Indian products more competitive.

The integrated policy will include construction of 50 economic corridors and upgrading of key feeder and inter-corridor routes to improve overall efficiency of freight movement, Gadkari said.

He was speaking at a curtain-raiser event of India Integrated Transport and Logistics Summit, to be held from May 3 to 5 in New Delhi.

India also plans to develop 35 multi-modal logistics parks to serve as centres for freight aggregation and distribution, multi-modal transportation, storage and warehousing and value-added services.

"In addition, there are also plans to construct 10 Inter-Modal Stations which integrate various transportation modes like rail, road, mass rapid transit system, bus rapid transit, auto-rickshaw, taxi and private vehicles," said Gadkari.

Earlier, the Minister for Road, Transport, Highways and Shipping told the media here that the government expects investments of over Rs 50,000 crore through the summit.

"It will see several international technology companies participate during the summit which will help in reduction of the logistics cost," he said.

The summit will focus on road freight corridors for economic development, urban transportation, and multi modal logistic parks under public private partnerships.

It will provide an excellent platform for companies to understand various opportunities in different segments of transport sector in India.

Under the logistic policy, an overall network of about 56,000 km has been identified including existing national corridors (Golden Quadrilateral and north-south-east-west Corridor)), proposed economic corridors, inter-corridor routes and feeder routes.

"As many as 191 towns/cities have been identified on these routes where steps will be taken to reduce congestion. Inter-state border movement related documentation and procedure will also be simplified.

"These interventions will enable a reduction of 5-6 per cent in overall supply chain costs in the economy," said Gadkari.

Logistics parks will help reduce transportation cost for the top 15 nodes by about 10 per cent, besides reducing pollution, congestion and warehousing costs.

Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh have already identified land parcels for development of logistics parks. Pre-feasibility study will be initiated in these two cities on immediate basis.

This is the first time ever that the development of the transport sector is being done in such an integrated manner.

The plan will serve to make the economy competitive by reducing logistics costs, bring down pollution levels by reducing congestion on roads, give a boost to industry and create employment.

IANS